This Writing Life 6: The One Rule to Writing

There is a plague of doubt that affects all writers.

Some are affected once in a while. Others are affected on a daily basis.

You sit down at your computer and you stare at the blank screen and as you begin to type you wonder: “Am I doing this right?”

Well have NO FEAR, because today, and TODAY ONLY, Erik will reveal to you the ONE TRUE RULE TO WRITING!

That’s right! There’s one rule and one rule only and today, for FREE, Erik will share it with YOU!

Does it Matter What I Write?

NO!

Whether you’re a blogger, a poet, a playwright, a scriptwriter, a novelist, a journalist or any other kind of writer there is only ONE RULE.

Does It Matter How I Write?

You weren’t listening to the last question, were you?

NO!

It doesn’t matter WHAT you write! It doesn’t matter HOW you write! It doesn’t even matter what LANGUGE you write in, THERE IS ONLY ONE RULE!

How Do You Know this One Rule?

Really? We have to get into this?

Sigh.

Fine.

I formulated the ONE RULE TO WRITING after years of talking to wannabe writers at various conventions. It came into full bloom a few years back at the Ad Astra Convention (and if you are a writer of genre fiction in or near Toronto, you should go to this one).

And I should mention, I was hardly the first to figure it out.

I was on a panel about writing groups. The other three on the panel were very much pro-writing groups. I was there to take the negative. I figured people could use my experience to learn what to avoid. (That will be another blog post)

Two of the other three didn’t show up.  The one who did was Brandon Sanderson.

He and I talked for a bit before the panel started, and we switched formats because really, no one was there to see me. So I interviewed Brandon and he is excellent to interview. At one point we were asked if there were any rules to writing. He said there were none, I said there was one, and when I said what it was, he agreed with me.

Now, back to the rampant hyperbole…

If the One Rule Is So Amazing, Why Are You Giving It Away For Free?

Because writers all over the world deserve to share in the ON RULE!  It is the great secret to ALL WRITING. Without it, THE LITERARY WORLD WOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED!!!

Is that too many capital letters and exclamation points?

NO!!!

The rule is too important not to share! Why, I'm not even going to ask that you go buy my books, Small Magics and Cold Magics, before you learn it (though if you wanted to, you could... just saying).

So When Are You Going to Share It?

AS SOON AS I RUN OUT OF RAMPANT HYPERBOLE!!!

And That Would Be When?

NOW!

Sit down.

Brace yourself.

Be prepared for the BRIGHTEST LIGHT OF INSPIRATION you have ever seen to go off in your head!

THE ONE RULE TO WRITING IS….

(Isn’t the anticipation killing you?)

THE ONE RULE TO WRITING IS….


You must finish.

Really? All This for That?

Yeah, it was more fun this way.

But "You must finish," it is the only rule.  Because no matter what you write about, no matter what genre or medium you write in, no matter what method you use to write (and that will be next week’s blog post) if you want to actually call yourself a writer, you have to finish your work.

I have met lots of people still working on that novel after 10 years, still working on those poem or short stories or screenplays that never, ever get them done.  They are not writers.  They are wannabes. They could become writers easy enough, but they haven't followed the one rule.

The difference between being a writer and not being a writer is finishing your work.

So follow the one rule.

Finish.

Next Week: Outliners vs. Pantsers or The Many Styles of Writing Stuff

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Marketing True Magics 5: Target Audiences or Who Are My Readers?

The single hardest thing in any business is getting people to know you exist. And in this business, it can be very difficult indeed.

 There were (on a researched guess because stats are hard to find) approximately 2,000,000 books published last year world-wide, including self-publishing.

That’s a whole lot of books.

Add to that, that most book purchases are impulse purchases, and without a powerhouse distributor behind you to ensure your book is in every bookstore, drugstore, airport and Walmart in the country, it becomes very easy to be lost in the clutter.

So how do we get noticed?

Your Target Audience
The writer in me always imagines either a group of people sitting in front of a stage wearing t-shirts with a series of coloured, concentric circles on them, or a large group of people staring eagerly at an archery butt.  Both are wrong, though the first one is pretty close:

A writer’s target audience is the group of people most likely to buy that writer’s books.

This is one of the reasons many writers stick to one genre.  If you’ve done fairly well with your gritty, realistic detective dramas, chances are your audience isn’t necessarily going to enjoy the fantasy romance with the beautiful magical princess you’ve just written.

 (And vice-versa: never underestimate the selling power of the fantasy romance with a beautiful magical princess).

There are ways around this, of course.  J.K. Rowling writes her detective series under a different name. Other authors who work across genres do the same.  Some write across genres and work hard to make sure each audience knows what they’re getting, which takes some work, but can also yield good results, though it may drive their agent/publisher insane.

“My Book Appeals to Everyone!”
No. It doesn’t.

No book appeals to everyone, and thinking that yours does means that you are going to be wasting your time and your money marketing to the wrong people, and will probably sell a lot fewer copies than you would otherwise.

Take the time to define exactly what genre your books are in.

My first three novels (Small Magics, Cold Magics and in April 2015, True Magics) are Fantasy Genre, and would be considered either New Adult or Young Adult.

By way of comparison, my new series (under development), is Young Adult, Horror, Ghost Stories, Historical (Victorian).

The more specific you can be about what sort of book you have written, the easier it is to find the sort of people who want to read it.

Speaking of which…

Next Week: Reaching Your Target Audience (without being creepy)

This Writing Life 5: Prioritizing and Protecting Your Time

It used to be easy to avoid distractions. Take the phone off the hook, put up a “do not disturb sign”, turn off the TV and don’t answer the door. Problem solved.

Yeah, I’m old.

These days, we live in a state of constant distraction, thanks to the Internet and all it provides. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are all designed to keep you looking so they can sell more ad space. Same with all those sites that I use to keep my twitter feed busy.  So how, if you are a stay-at-home, working by the hour/job consultant and writer, do you manage to overcome the distractions and make a living?

Willpower. Sheer, unadulterated, massive willpower; nothing else will…
…
…
I’m sorry, I couldn’t finish that sentence I was laughing so hard.

Willpower doesn’t work for squat. You only have so much brainpower to power everything including your will and a lot of it is needed for work.  So here, really, is what I do.

What’s Worth Your Time: Urgent vs. Important
The first step is figuring out which of the things that you are doing are actually worth your time.  There’s a whole whack of ways to figure out what’s important in your life, but I like the Urgent vs Important matrix.  This tool was used by General/President Eisenhower, though I’m not sure he invented it.  Either way, he was pretty darn organized.

The matrix looks like this:

	Important	Not Important
Urgent
Not Urgent

And everything you do in a day goes inside it.  So for my day today, it looks like this

	Important	Not Important
Urgent	Blog post, work for client, edit new book, get kid to and from day camp,	Work out, create plot arc for new series, housework
Not Urgent	Phone calls, text messages	Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, , TV, etc.

Amazing how housework is almost never actually Urgent and Important at the same time. That changes places when my mother is coming to town.

Simple, easy and allows you to see which things you are wasting your time on so you can minimize it.

A Note on Multiple Priorities
If you have more than one client/project on the go (and looking at my job board right now I have 12) then you need to prioritize them in your day. Here’s a suggestion

1. Are they paying you?
2. Is it on a deadline?
3. Will it further your career?
4. Does it involve housecleaning?

The number of “Yes” answers you get for the first three should help you place the project in order of importance/urgency.

If the answer to the 4th question is “Yes”, the project cannot be considered urgent and important unless you also answer “Yes” to one of the first three or your relatives are coming for a visit (or you need a clean space to work, which can happen I’ve heard).

…But There’s All These Interwebs!
The internet is a time suck. Turn it off.  And I don’t mean close your browser because that doesn’t work. I get distracted or bored and turn it on again, and there goes the morning/day/week/July to October, 2012.

Fortunately, there are dozens of apps out there that will temporarily disable your social media and Internet. I use Anti-Social when I’m working on client projects because it blocks social media but allows me to research as needed and use my online tracker for hours. I use Freedom when I’m writing my own stuff because it blocks the Internet completely.  Both work well and don’t stop working until the timer run out or I reboot my computer.

Keeping On Keeping On.
Some days none of this works.

You know your priorities; you know you should turn on Freedom/Anti-Social/Whatever; you know your bum should be in your chair, your fingers should be on your keyboard and your cursor should be moving to the right.

But you don’t do it.

These are wasted days. Wasted days mean no earnings, no movement forward on your goals, and no luck convincing your significant other there’s a good reason why the kitchen isn’t clean.

And sometimes they happen.

There's a lot of reasons wasted days happen.  Lack of external stimulation, maybe. Lack of exercise or sleep or solitude or maybe your brain just needs to recharge.

If wasted days start happening regularly, or if they happen more than two days in a row, you need to sit down and re-think your schedule.  You are falling into a rut that can really, really mess up your life (and your ability to pay rent).

So, if you lose a day, feel free to berate yourself and be angry and upset. But the next day, be back at your desk, and the next and the next. Keep on keeping on.

Because if you can’t do that, you need to find another line of work.

Next week: The One Rule to to Writing!

Marketing True Magics 4: Cutting Through the Clutter or: Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick Two.

I spent 15 years as an actor before my daughter was born. Chances are you’ve never heard of me.  Most actors aren’t stars. But that’s all right. I’m not bitter at all. I don’t still pine for it like a Norwegian Blue pining for the Fjords.

…But enough of that.

I spent most of my career on stage, and there I was introduced to one of the most useful expressions ever:

“Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.”

Good and fast costs money. Good and cheap takes time. Fast and cheap may do in a pinch but will have no staying power.

Now, let’s apply that to social media marketing, because social media may be free, but that doesn’t mean it’s without cost.

Remember our graphic from last week?

Click here to see the full-size graphic at: http://forwallpapers.com/

We cannot be everywhere at once without a major outlay of time and money.  We can’t even be most places. Heck, even the limited amount of social media I do now is taking up more time that I want.

So how do we pick?

Defining Our Terms

Good social media grabs attention in a world where everyone is clamouring for it. And since you know you’re not going to get everyone’s attention, good social media will get the right people’s attention. (We’ll talk about target audiences next week). It is also going to keep their attention without harping on your book, because a social media plan that just advertises quickly becomes boring.  And boring social media is forgotten social media.

Fast social media keeps up with the trends. It makes your followers/fans/ listeners/viewers/whatever count skyrocket. It’s right there in people’s faces anytime day or night. The people who follow you know what’s happening, when it’s happening, and they look to you to tell them.

Cheap social media isn’t ineffective, just inexpensive. It means doing things yourself rather than having them done for you, and doing them the simplest way possible. You don’t need to spend a fortune to get what you want, but you are going to need to spend time.  And the more social media coverage you want, the more time you are going to have to spend.

So, pick two.

My Picks: Good and (fairly) Cheap.
I am not made of money (pauses to imagine, sighs, continues) so I can’t invest huge amounts of it into marketing my books. I’m not made of spare time, either, so I need to not be continuously on social media. I need to focus on creating good, short social media that will reach as many people as possible, for as little expense as possible.

What I don’t need to be is fast. (Timely, yes, but that’s a different post). I write books. I’m not a fashion critic, news outlet or gossip site. My work isn’t urgent tell everyone NOW!

Add that to a publishing date that’s not until next April and I’ve got plenty of time to get things built up, automated and ready to go.

What It Means for My Social Media Marketing
It means I’ll be doing a slow, multi-pronged social media campaign, organically building followers across all mediums to maximize coverage and exposure to my target markets. This will enable the maximization of conversions from followers to customers and result in monetization through product sales …

Sorry, fell into marketing speak. Trying again:

I’ll be using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads, and possibly YouTube (listed in order of use, not order of value) to reach out and tell people about my books and about me, and to get people to buy my books.

I am open to adding other sources, but only if I can prove they will be worth the time and effort.

I am automating my Social Media feeds using Hootsuite so I don’t have to be on it all the time. I’m also using a news aggregator (feed.ly) to find interesting content to post when I don’t personally have anything interesting to say, and to follow certain topics on my newsfeeds so I don’t have to scroll endlessly on my phone.

As for how well it’s going to work…  that’s what we’re all going to find out.

Next week: Target Audiences or Who ARE All These People?

This Writing Life 4: Scheduling or, Where Is My COFFEE???

The Schedule:

6 a.m. wake up
6:15 a.m. workout & light stretching
7 a.m. Make girlfriend’s lunch for work, shave, shower, eat breakfast
7:30 a.m. Check email, Facebook, Twitter, webcomics and news
7:45 a.m. Daughter comes over from Mom’s place
8:00 a.m. Workout with daughter: strengthening and Kung Fu
8:30 a.m. Get daughter organized for day camp
8:45 a.m. Bike daughter to day camp and back
9:15 a.m. Home and blog
10:00 a.m. Ghostwriting
12:30 p.m. Lunch
1 p.m. Ghostwriting
3:45 p.m. Bike to day-camp to pick up daughter
4:15 p.m. Home and work while daughter practices piano
5:30 p.m. Make dinner, hang out with family
8:00 p.m. Write.
10 p.m.  Get ready for bed.
11 p.m. Sleep

No excuses, no arguments, no changes. Right?

Riiiiiiiighhhhhht.

The Reality
The tighter the schedule, the less likely it is to work out, unless you have your own administrative assistant.  So far today, the workout happened on time, but we couldn’t find my daughter’s backpack, it took longer to get to day-camp than we thought, I needed to get new pedals for my bike and a loaf of bread for lunch and an apple turnover because apple turnover. And I spilled a pint glass of very cold water over myself and the floor.

It’s already gone 10 a.m. and I still haven’t had a cup of coffee.

Excuse me…

Ah. Coffee. Better now.

Schedule Sanely
Schedules are vital. Knowing when you need to work and what you're working on is the key to running any freelance business, whether it’s writing or anything else. Blocking your time appropriately means you get more done, have more free time, and feel better about each day.  Just don’t block every minute because chances are things will go wrong and then you’ll feel grumpy about it all.

Write your schedule down and keep it someplace where you can see it. I use a notebook that I keep beside me on my desk for the daily stuff. I also have a wall calendar in front of me that shows the week, month and year, because some things need to be planned ahead.

Be Flexible…
Because not everything works out as planned.  Do your best to stay on schedule and try not to go mad when you don’t.   Sometimes you have to pick things to set aside one day, knowing that you will get them done the next. That said...

Hit Your Deadlines
Because you want to do this for a living, and no one hire someone twice who can’t get work in on time.

And that’s it for today because I am behind on my projects.

Next time on this Writer’s Life: Prioritizing and Protecting your Time (Put Down the Smart Phone!)

"True Magics" release date!!!

Hi everyone!

We have finally nailed down our release date for True Magics.

We had hoped to have it ready for fall 2014, but after consulting with my editor and publisher at Dragon Moon Press, we have all agreed to push it back to ensure the book is at the level of quality you expect from DMP and from me.

Our new release date for True Magics is April 2015, and in keeping with Dragon Moon Press tradition, we will be launching it at Ad Astra, "Toronto's premiere SF and Fantasy Fan Convention."

While I am sad the book will not be out this fall, I am thrilled to be launching at Ad Astra.

Ad Astra is a great convention, by fans, for fans, that focuses on literary SF&F as well as media.  I have always had a wonderful time there, and expect next year to be no different.

And in the meantime, I have short story or two I want to write, another novel to edit, new novels to plan and write, a web series to produce and another short film to write and shoot. Then there's that whole marketing plan I've been talking about...

So thank you for your patience. I think it's going to be a great book.

And if you haven't picked up Small Magics and Cold Magics yet, now would be an excellent time.

Marketing True Magics 3: Social Media or What Fresh Hell is This?

Ah, social media. We love you. We hate you. Especially Facebook. We all love hating Facebook. But social media is here to stay and needs to be integrated into any marketing campaign.  This leads to some issues...

So, So Many Choices…

Social media is a massive opportunity and an equally massive pain in the location of your choice, in part because what's most effective keeps changing!

First there was MySpace. Best thing ever. Then it sucked. Now it’s all about promoting bands and music, so it has found its niche but it’s useless for book promoting purposes.

Then there was Facebook. Best thing ever. Then it changed its algorithm to maximize its ad revenue so  only 4% of your fan base see your posts unless you pay money. So they suck.

Now there is Twitter where you can actually reach your followers if you happen to tweet at the right time to maximize the number of followers who see it read it, or enough times that everyone sees it, but not so often that it annoys people and makes them stop following you.

Instagram is coming up, because the only thing better than a short message is a short message with a picture. Usually of your food. Or your self. Or your cat, because cats.

And don’t forget Pinterest, where you can amalgamate stories and website and things that interest you and hope others follow your pins and find you fascinating enough to buy your books.

Did We Mention Blogging?

Blogging is a great way to drive traffic to your website, make people see you as an authority or at least interesting and you can hook it up to your Twitter and Facebook feeds to further drive traffic to your website and engage people so they will make a purchase.

Not that that’s why I’m doing all these posts and have you bought my books, Small Magics and Cold Magics yet?

And Then There Are All These:

Click here to see the full-size graphic at: http://forwallpapers.com/

Got a headache yet?

And Don’t Forget: Content is King…

You have to have something to say, if you want people to listen.

No one likes the guy screaming BUY MY BOOK! NO REALLY, BUY MY BOOK! I HAVEN’T GIVEN YOU A REASON TO THINK I’M INTERESTING, BUT BUY MY BOOK! 

So you need to sit down and develop exciting, engaging content that will help change readers to fan and fans to customers. In all that spare time you have between working and writing and managing all your social media platforms. Oh, and your family. You should probably feed them once in a while. especially the kids.

So What Do I Do?!?!?

How do I maximize my presence on social media in a way that will enable me to reach the individuals that might be interested in buying my book and convert them from prospects into customers while at the same time not taking away my entire life and leaving me no time to write more books which are the product I am selling?

Next week: Cutting Through the Clutter or Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick Two.

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This Writing Life 3: Making a Living

Every now and then I sit back in my kitchen chair, look around with surprise and wonder how I got this lucky.

Because I am, make no mistake about it. Hard work is no guarantee for success. If it were, there’d be a lot more successful people in this world.  I worked hard but I also got lucky, and I am aware of that every day.

That said, I did some things along the way.

My Foundation
I would love to say that my whole life I wanted to be a writer and focused all my energy toward it, but that isn’t true.

I wanted to be a fighter pilot!

My eyesight went when I was eight. So much for that. The rest of the things I did you can read about in this post.

So rather than starting with a solid “writer’s” foundation, I built mine piecemeal, on the job, learning how as I went. The classes I took to build my day-job credentials, from marketing to project management, also helped.  So did writing continuously and listening to my editors.

Especially listening to my editors. For God’s sake listen to your editors!

That’s how I built my foundation: piece by slow piece. And if you’re a young writer, contemplating making a career out of this, I have two bits of advice:

One: It may take a while.

Two: For God’s sake, don’t do it my way. My way sucked. Get an English degree, find job that keeps you in beer and skittles, and write.

Credentials
I was going to wax eloquent here, but it’s easier just to attach my résumé and sounds less like bragging. Here it is.

Where the Money Comes From
I make most of my money ghostwriting through Elance, which I recommend. Their system ensures that you get paid for the work you do (so do Odesk and Guru, and I’m on them as well) and allows you to rate clients as well as have them rate you. You do good work, you get good ratings, you get more work. It’s a lovely circle.

Like all online job sources, elance is a user-beware kind of place. Some people will contact you through elance and then try to hire you outside of it. Don’t do it. Unless the person is in your town, you’ve met them, and they’re willing to pay you in advance, it’s way too easy for them to rip you off.

There are also a large number of people who are more than willing to rip you off by offering miniscule amounts for the work that you do. Don’t take those jobs. You’re worth money so get paid for your time.

I also make money working locally, through contacts I’ve developed in my industry and in others. I write scripts, speeches newsletters and whatever else comes my way.

So that’s how I earn my living. Sorry I didn’t have any great secrets to depart, but if you’re willing to pay a ridiculous fee, I’ll be more than willing to make some up. :-)

Next week: Scheduling, because if you can’t do that, you need to find another line of work.

Marketing True Magics 2: It’s Not Just the Book

To review: I have finished True Magics, third book in my Magics Trilogy (you can buy Small Magics and Cold Magics here), I have a contract to have them published this fall, and I have time to build a proper marketing campaign.

So what do I do next?

Being a good little Communications Consultant who wants to sell lots books, I researched best practices: who sold how many books doing what when and how?

And the answer that leapt in big bold exciting letters was:

IT’S NOT JUST THE BOOK!!! IT’S ABOUT YOU!!!

Yes, you! The author! You have to be interesting! You have to be exciting! You have to reach out and let the world know about YOU! You have to get on social media! You have to blog! You have to Tweet! You have to Pin! You have to Instagram! You have to do that new exciting fifteen second-video thing! You have to make appearances! You have to go to book fairs! You have to go to conventions! You have to do signings and readings! You need to be in schools! You need to be in universities! You need to be at conferences!

YOU NEED TO SELL YOU!!!

Yeah, right.

No.

Well, yes.... Sort of.... But, no.

Or more correctly: Yes and No.

I'd better explain.

What AreYou Really Marketing?
The first question a good marketer asks is, “What do I want people to think, feel, and do?”

A marketer has to be able to answer all three, because without all three, nothing happens. People need to know about a product (think) and they need to connect with it on an emotional level (feel) before they will purchase that product (do).

So how does that work with selling books?

NON-FICTION writers need to market the author. Whether they’ve written Integrating Lean Sigma Six into Your Home Based Marmalade Business, or Fifty-Five Ways Diaper Cream Can Improve Your Bottom Line, the non-fiction writer’s potential customers need to think that the author is a subject matter expert; they need to feel that the author can be trusted and the author’s idea is a great one, and then they will do the buying of the author’s book.

FICTION writers need to market the writing. We need people to think that our writing is entertaining and to feel our writing is worth their time and money, before they will do (by buying our book).

So does this mean that the fiction writer doesn't have to get on social media and blog or tweet or pin or instagram or do that 15 second video thing? That we can stay home from book fairs and conventions and signings and readings?

We should be so lucky.

Right now most of our potential customers have no idea how good our writing actually is. And unless we are already bestselling authors, no one except for us is going to put in the effort to let people know it.

So yes, we need to do social media, and book tours and conventions and all of that. And we need to promote it to the right people, or we’re wasting our time.

So it's not just the book, it's the writing.

So my job is to convince people that I write well and that they should buy my book.

Now, how shall I reach them?

Next week: Social Media Platforms or What Fresh Hell is This?

This Writing Life 2: How I got here.

The final step was losing my job.

The first step was thirty-five years earlier in grade 3 at William Grayson School in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, when I decided to write a book.

It wasn’t original – the characters and stories came from comics I was reading. It probably wasn’t that good because, hey, I was nine. But it was ten pages double sided in my duo-tang and I thought it was pretty impressive.

That was when I started writing.

I wrote stories continuously, but never thought of submitting them. And while the family might have been impressed and my granddad liked my writing, at no time did anyone suggest “you could make a living from this.” It wasn’t something my family (and therefore I) saw as a career path.

By the time I finished high school I wanted to be an actor. I studied theatre in university.  I moved to Toronto, discovered fight directing and learned how to do that. I finished my first novel but didn’t do anything with it. I met the woman who became my wife. I supported myself doing contract work for charities while not so much pursuing as stumbling blindly after an elusive acting career at a time when the film industry in Toronto was flagging.

My wife decided to leave the theatre to find steady work. We decided to have a child and so I left the theatre too and searched for a career. I tried working as a fundraiser and discovered I was terrible at it. Then I got hired by Manage My Home to be their staff writer.

I wrote more than 150 Home Maintenance articles in a two-year period. And if you think you can’t find more than 150 things to talk about in home maintenance, you’ve never owned a house. I have.

We bought it because we were both making good money and we had a child. I published my first novel, and for the first time writing seemed like a viable career. Everything seemed right. Except it wasn’t.

Our marriage started falling apart. We went to counselling. Manage My Home was bought by a much larger company who didn’t believe in having staff writers and I lost my job. We quit counselling so I could focus on finding a job. I went to school at night and got a certificate in Corporate Communications. I was hired by Trillium Health Centre, making better money than before.

Things righted themselves for a while. We went back to counselling, and I wrote my second published novel in 2-hour slots from 10 p.m. to midnight while my wife and little girl were asleep. I lived on six or less hours sleep a night for a year and somewhere in the midst of it all we realized our marriage was over.

We sold the house, separated and moved into apartments close to our daughter’s new school. And just as things were sorting themselves out, Trillium Health Centre merged with another hospital and I lost my job again.

They were very nice about it. They set me up with one of the best employment agencies in Canada and sent me home.

Where I stewed.

I didn't want to work in offices anymore. I didn't want to drive two hours a day to get to and from work.

I didn’t go to the employment agency, or take their courses. Instead, I started wondering about starting my own business; one where I write and people pay me for it.

So I did.

Which leads us to next week's post: How I make a living at this.

Marketing "True Magics" 1: It’s Written! Now What?

I’ve got True Magics written! It’s done! And I have a contract with a Dragon Moon Press to publish it! This is amazing! It’s wonderful! It’s…

… the third time I’ve done this. And yes, it is still cool.

My first published novel was Small Magics (2007), my second was Cold Magics (2010). True Magics (2014?) will be my third.

My name is Erik Buchanan. If you read my last post, you’ll know I’m an author, and you’ll know that I am a professional writer. It’s all I do and it’s how I earn my living.

What you don’t know is that I spent seven years working in corporate communications, which is a not-selling-you-something way of saying marketing.

And for those seven years I was too busy, too tired and too wrapped up in making a living and commuting and working over time and dealing with my disintegrating marriage and building a new life after separation to focus on the thing that I really wanted: being a professional author.

Now, things have settled. I don’t have a commute anymore, save from the bedroom to the kitchen table where I work. I do what I love for a living.  My domestic life has stabilized and most of the stress that was sucking the energy and life out of me has gone.

And that means I have both the time and resources to properly market my latest book, and use what I build there to help sell the next one.

These blog posts: “Marketing True Magics” are going to document this journey, from picking the tools I’m going to use, to planning out the marketing strategy, to implementation of the tactics that will support that strategy.

And I am hoping that you’ll come with me. Whether you’re an author or an aspiring author, a marketer, an agent or an editor, a fan or just curious to see what goes into making a small press book get noticed.

Together we’re going to see what works well and what works poorly, what helps sell my book and what wastes my time.  And at the end of it all, we’ll all know more so that for my next book (or for your next book) we’ll do even better.

Next week: It’s Not Just the Book.

This Writing Life 1: Introductions

It's 8:30 a.m. and I am at my desk.

Well, desk is a misnomer.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table in our apartment in downtown Toronto, Canada. But this table is where I work, so until the family comes home it’s my desk.

My name is Erik Buchanan. I’m a professional writer, and I make a pretty good living at it.  “This Writing Life” is a series about how I got here, how I stay here, how you can get here, and what all of us who write can do to improve our writing.

My desk chair faces a wall. There’s a window beside me but I have to crane my neck to look out, which keeps me from staring at the garden and daydreaming.

Instead, if I look up from my computer I can see two whiteboards. The smaller whiteboard lists my projects. There are about a dozen, and so far everything is running on time.

The big whiteboard shows the story arcs for my new novel, True Magics, (due out this fall). The story arcs are written in in eight different colours and look a mess, but they tells me exactly what I need to fix.

Today’s writing tasks:

• This blog post
• Four hours of ghostwriting for a client,
• Three hours of editing on True Magics

Tomorrow looks similar, except it’s six hours of editing True Magics, seven if I can squeeze in the time.

This is where I am: in my office, writing for a living. And I love it.

So how did I get here?

I’ll talk about that next week.

Blog Hop: My Writing Process

My good friend and fellow writer K.T. Briskie tagged me in a blog hop meme and gave me some questions about my writing process.  Unfortunately, I have no other authors to tag to keep the meme going, but here's my answers.

1) What am I working on?

I have a fair number of projects on the go, which is why I keep a whiteboard with all of them on it. Otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with myself in the mornings. Fortunately, I'm sitting across from my whiteboard, so I can list them for you.

Let's start with the novels:

I am editing two books right now.  The first is True Magics, the third and final book in my Magics Trilogy, due out this fall (YAY!). I have sent it to my editor, the brilliant Gabrielle Harbowy, and am waiting to see how much I have to fix to make it marketable. And by the way, if you haven't bought Small Magics and Cold Magics yet, now is an excellent time to click on the links and do so. Otherwise, how will you be ready to buy the third one?

My second editing project is City of Phantoms, a YA horror novel, and hopefully the first of a series.  It's about a young girl in Victorian England who disguises herself as a boy to take a job, only to find that the work is very mysterious - and dangerous.  I'll tell more when I get the edit done and start shopping it around.

I am working on the series arc for this one as well, so I know what's going to be happening down the line of books. I have a good concept, now I just have to get it to the end, so I can write the rest of the books.

I am in the planning and research stages for an historical fiction novel, set in Pre-Elizabethan England. Not going to say much about it, but it's a book I've been wanting to write for a long time and I really like the concept so here's hoping it works.

And now that we're done the novels, here's the rest:

I have just finished a short humorous story and am sending it out to market. I will also be starting a second story with a Noir style set after the Zombie apocalypse.

For some things completely different, I am also working on a six episode web series called "Hendrix's People" about two thieves trying to prove one of them didn't betray their boss and their organization.  I'm hoping all the pieces will come together this summer and we can shoot it then. It will feature a lot of humour, a lot of fighting, and a great deal of fun. I am also working on a book with a personal trainer friend on on how to train for Obstacle course races, because they are fun.

And then there's my day job. I ghostwrite for a living and currently have 3 projects on the go.  My client is excellent, and that's all I can say because, you know, I'm the ghost.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

All stories are about people, and the challenges they face, and it is seeing how people are transformed by their experiences that is one of the most interesting parts of reading.  That is what I try to bring to my work. When I write , I am more interested in the personal side of the story, rather than the grand epic scale of things (though the grand epic may make an appearance).  

The other thing I believe in is consequences. Too often in fantasy or sci-fi we have "monsters" - orcs, aliens, zombies, whatever - and the purpose of those monsters is to give our heroes a license to show how powerful and strong they are by killing, and doing so in the knowledge that there will be no consequences.  In reality, all actions have consequences. They may be external, such as society punishing you, people's relatives our for revenge or  friends being driven away by what you've become. They may be internal: nightmares, shifts in world view, questioning of the society in which you live, self hatred or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And it is those consequences, or the possibility of those consequences, that I like to explore when writing.

3) Why do I write what I do?

Because it's fun.  I love exploring the "might have been" worlds, and the impossible. It's a chance to let your imagination go in places that literary fiction doesn't allow.  And in contrast, I like the strictures of historical fiction. There's a challenge in not just getting the characters right, but getting the world around them right as well.

Most important, I like to tell a good story, and these are the sorts of stories I like best, so they're the stories I write.


4) How does my writing process work?

My writing process has changed a great deal in the last few years. I used to just write, let the story take me where it will and enjoy the ride.  I still do this to an extent with short stories because they are short.  That said, I've discovered that mapping out novels ahead of time makes it a lot easier for me to write them quickly and to get them out. It's especially useful in the ghostwriting, and I've brought it in to my own work as well.

So these days, I will start with a concept, write out ideas and bits and pieces, until I have enough for a story outline.  At the same time I work on developing the characters so I'll know how they'll behave and what sort of reactions I can expect from them in the situations I put them in. Of course, sometimes the characters react in ways that are completely different from what I had planned, which can be annoying or fun, depending on whether it improves the writing.

I try to write every day, because if you don't write every day, you can fall out of the habit, and from experience, that can really mess up your timetable.

And that's me. Hope you enjoyed it.

Ad Astra! I'm going to the Convention!

It's the Ad Astra Convention this weekend! I'm on panels, reading a new short story, and aiming to misbehave! Here's my schedule:

Saturday Morning:
11:00 Swords: Not Just the Pointy End

Saturday Afternoon:
1:00 How to Read...Good
2:00 Signings!
7:30 Reading: Sweater Girls of the Apocalypse

Saturday night: Dragon Moon Press Launch Party! Come visit!

Sunday Afternoon:
3:00: Historical Fiction: Balancing Fact with Fantasy

The rest of the time I'll be wandering about, attending panels, hanging with other authors, and taking my turn staffing the Dragon Moon Press table in the dealer's room.

I hope to see you there!

http://www.ad-astra.org/

A New Year, a New Book

Well, at long last, I have it done.

True Magics, the final book in my Magics trilogy is finished.

(I wasn't planning to write a trilogy. It just worked out that way)

I have the contract from my publisher, the ever-brilliant Dragon Moon Press, and we are aiming for a release date at the end of September.

And by the way...

WOOT!

(I am very happy!)

Ever wondered why we all like stories so much?

Lifehacker.com has a great article on The Science of Storytelling that explains why stories are so powerful, and why a good one works so well with an audience.

My favourite quote:

When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

Read the whole article here.

Neat!

That's just neat: What was that book

Ever tried to find a book where you couldn't remember the title or the author, just vaguely remembered snippets?

You're in luck!

What was that book? is an online community that reunites folks with the booksthat they've lost.

This may be one of the best ideas ever.

Hat tip to io9, which is where I learned about them.

New Review: When the Hero Comes Home

The folks over at Black Gate gave a very thoughtful review for "When the Hero Comes Home." You can read it here: http://www.blackgate.com/2012/05/01/when-the-hero-comes-home-a-review/ And they gave me a mention!

Erik Buchanan’s “The Evil That Remains” is nicely structured, has a strong thematic idea, builds a credible setting with a few well-chosen touches, and uses the fantastic in a memorable way.

So yay! for "When the Hero Comes Home," and our wonderful editors Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, what are you waiting for? Buy it here!

I agree with everything said in this story!

From io9:

Ten of the Most Awesome Sword-Fight Scenes Ever

And I especially agree with their choice of number 1.

Holy Sh...

This is really cool in a "let's clean up the whole plant" kind of way.